Water flows through our lives as sustenance, border, weapon, and witness. Hydrographies brings together artists, activists, and thinkers whose work engages water as a contested terrain. While geography, etymologically the writing of the earth, underpins the frameworks of contemporary geopolitics - hydrography here is reconceived towards alternative cartographies, fluid pathways through which common desires, shared struggles, and transnational solidarities can be reimagined and rewritten.

The exhibition navigates a range of contexts, revealing how rivers, oceans, and aquifers are mobilized in contemporary struggles over land, sovereignty, identity, and survival.

At a time when war and ecological breakdown intersect with unprecedented force—from the weaponization of water in zones of armed conflict to the displacement of populations through hydropower—Hydrographies insists on reimagining our relationship to nature and communities through care, reciprocity, and resistance. It invites us to read the world through its watery archives and to listen—carefully—to the voices that rise from its depths.

With works by:

Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc, Alia Farid, Ines Di Folco with Caroline Curdy, Laura Huertas Millán, Naeem Mohaiemen and Samari Chakma, Asunción Molinos Gordos, Serapis Maritime with Florian Goldmann, and Atelier NL

Visuals by:
Studio Kai Udema

Architectural consultancy by:
Diogo Passarinho Studio (Diogo Passarinho, Gonçalo Reynolds)

Curated by:
Silvia Franceschini

Program line

Hydrographies is the second iteration of a five-year program as part of the Systems and Territories program line, each curated by Silvia Franceschini. 

Public program Hydrographies

General opening hours
June 6 - August 24, 2024
Open every Friday, Saturday and Sunday between 12-5 PM
At Onomatopee

Exhibition opening

Thursday, June 5, 2025
7:30 - 10 PM (doors open 7 PM)

Free entrance + free drink
At Onomatopee

Image still by Alia Farid Chibayish, 2023, commissioned by The Vega Foundation and Doha Film Institute. Filmed in the southern marshlands of Iraq with Riad and Fatima Bahrani. Courtesy Sfeir-Semler Gallery.